Welcome to this year's Official Smogon Tournament, the ninth installment of one of Smogon's most prestigious tournaments. The OST is one of Smogon's longest standing traditions in tournaments and has crowned many great Pokemon players as its champions across three generations. Over the next few months, hundreds of players will compete to the best of their ability as they attempt to join the exclusive ranks of the OST trophy holders. Only one of those players will succeed in their journey and earn the recognition that comes with their victory, along with the iconic OST trophy.

This year, however, there will be more on the line than just a prestigious trophy. In addition to the trophy and the bragging rights that come with it, the winner of the tournament will receive a brand new Nintendo 3DS, and second place will receive a copy of Black 2 or White 2! The top four players will also receive an exclusive Smogon T-shirt.

Matches are to be played on Pokemon Showdown! If both players agree, matches may also be played on Pokemon Online 2.

Standard Rules and Clauses

Sleep Clause: A player cannot put two or more different opposing Pokémon to sleep using attacks that induce sleep to opposing Pokémon.

Species Clause: A player cannot have two of the same Pokémon on their team. For example, a player cannot have two Koffing on his or her team.

Evasion Clause: A player cannot use the moves Double Team or Minimize in their Pokémon's movesets.

OHKO Clause: Players cannot use Horn Drill, Guillotine, Sheer Cold, or Fissure in any of their Pokémon's movesets.

Team Preview: Players must turn on the Team Preview feature where players can view the opposing team's Pokémon and choose their lead Pokémon.

Timer Clause: If a player exhausts the timer, he/she loses.

Uber Clause: Players may not use any items, moves, abilities, or Pokemon that appear on Smogon's OU Ban List. If the tiers change or new items, abilities, moves, or Pokemon become available in the middle of a round, the changes will take effect in the following round. There will be an announcement in the relevant round if this occurs.

New Rules

Activity Decisions / Coin Flips: We are changing the rules for activity / coin flip decisions for this tournament. In the event that there is an uncompleted match at the deadline, it will be coin flipped unless one or both of the players involved in the match specifically request an activity win and explain sufficiently why they deserve to win over their opponent. Attempting to schedule a battle is required in order to receive the win by activity. To make it clear that you are requesting an activity win when you post, you must open your post with "Activity Win Request" in bold.

I contacted my opponent on the 27th, one day after the round was posted and told him my timezone. He responded on the 30th but did not indicate his timezone. I replied back asking for a timezone on the 1st of December, and he never replied. On the 7th, I VMed him again asking whether he could battle on the weekend, and yet again he didn't respond. I deserve the activity win because my opponent ignored my attempts to schedule our battles.

If you believe your opponent is making an unfair request and that they don't deserve the activity win over you, you can either make your own request or quote their post and explain why they don't deserve it. You should try to make your activity win request posts at least 24 hours before the deadline to give your opponent a reasonable opportunity to contest it with their own activity win request.

Timer / Disconnection Rules: Timer Clause will be strictly enforced for this tournament. This means that the normal disconnection rules found in the Tournament Rules, Guidelines, and Information thread do not apply. If a player disconnects and does not reconnect to their battle before the timer expires, they lose that particular game. This doesn't necessarily mean they lose the entire best-of-three set.

*NEW*Playing Before Predictions Close
Please avoid playing before the predictions in the predictions tournament close. If you absolutely must play before predictions close, do not report the result in the thread until after the predictions close. Reporting the outcome will result in the deletion of your post. Attempts to nullify the match on the basis that it was played before the allotted time will be ignored and may result in a sportsmanship infraction.

Known Bugs
For informational purposes, those who play their games on Showdown should be aware of the known bugs listed here.

Just when we thought--no, hoped--he was gone for good, defending OST champ Snunch returns with a vengeance. He's out to prove that his first run wasn't just the product of good luck and good counterteams; guess he no longer cares if people don't take him seriously. Unfortunately for poor Snunchers, his opponent this round is the proud recipient of the most blowjobs from his SPL team, dragonuser. Despite coming from Serebii and being tutored by Lamppost, he turned out to be a somewhat decent player, and he's out for blood in this OST. In Round 1, he knocked out perennial quarterfinalist / future XY tiering leader, TFC; can he continue his streak and take out his own manager? Or will Snunch squeeze out a victory and delay his inevitable slip into obscurity by one more round? ~ Eo Ut Mortus

Heist vs badabing

To the disbelief of many, Australia's accident has survived yet another round. As he is known as the Kev with the worst tournament performance, it is surprising that Heist has surpassed both BKC and Kevin Garrett in this OST, but his streak may be about to come to an abrupt end. Breakthrough BW player badabing is known as much for his Pokemon skill as his lack of keyboarding ability. Keep your eyes out for this series; it's going to be the most autistic display of Pokemon since Earthworm played Tour. ~ Eo Ut Mortus

ToF vs undisputed

Most of us thought that Twist of Fate would be washed up, but the man who once singlehandedly saved this community has somehow found enough time away from his $80k/year job to play another 15 games of BW2 OU. Smogon's snarkiest user undisputed looks to make ToF's st9 record 2-3, having found a way to be physically revolted by the current metagame while simultaneously laddering on Pokemon Showdown so frequently one could mistakenly believe he has drivers. Early communication indicates that these two may decide to play DPP OU in addition to BW2 OU, ensuring they play nothing but mirror matches to optimize skill involved. ~ Snunch

McMeghan vs ssbbm

The reigning Smogon Tour champion will look to add to his ever-growing trophy collection with a series of wins. His opponent could pull an upset, but in all likelyhood McMeghan will be enshrined for all of the world to love. Stay tuned to find out! ~ Earthworm

WhiteQueen vs M Dragon

This write-up will be a composition of all of WhiteQueen's posts in the OST thread once his ban expires. ~ Eo Ut Mortus

Stathakis vs gr8astard

The ‘original’ heavy offensive theorist and Smogon old guard legend Stathakis takes on Gr8astard, a quasi-random who is best known for his laddering in BW OU on the PO beta server and sometimes losing in the 2nd or 3rd round of tournaments on Smogon (he bitches a lot when you hax him, but not as much as stathakis’ protégé; reyscarface). It may seem like the result of this match-up would say something about the relative skill levels of the respective communities, but in the words of current pokemon x/y tier leader TFC, ‘BW Sux.’ Will Stathakis’ long-term thinking skills allow him to be successful in the most offensive metagame since Chansey wars in #warau? Or will Gr8astards significantly greater experience and Lavos’ help make all the difference? More importantly, why is Indra still in this tournament? Be sure to remind these users to save the logs of this match, they might share with you if you ask nicely. ~ myzozoa

Thatsjustpeachy vs Windsong

After three rounds, a battle between two of Serebii's most prestigious warriors ensues. RU champ and Indie Scooter elite Windsong takes on last year's runner up, Thatsjustpeachy, who's gender still remains in question to US East boss Stone_Cold. Despite windsong's strong presence on Serebii clans xat chats and his love of zeph, he might give seasoned smogon tournament player and avid anime lover Thatsjustpeachy a run for her (his?) money. Will RU's 12 year old bombshell be able to prevail over one of Lizardman's falsely acclaimed students? Stay tuned to find out. ~AB2

Deadline

The deadline for Round 3 will be 11:59PM EST on the 20th of January, 2013. Any matches not played by this time will be coin flipped unless one or both players have submitted a request for an activity win.

The reigning Smogon Tour champion will look to add to his ever-growing trophy collection with a series of wins. His opponent could pull an upset, but in all likelyhood McMeghan will be enshrined for all of the world to love. Stay tuned to find out! ~ Earthworm

Wait what? I had two activity posts and Indra didn't have any. He never came on at all and responded one of the last days but then never replied to my reply. Sorry, is it too late to make my Activity Win Request now? My opponent didn't really do anything.

Wait what? I had two activity posts and Indra didn't have any. He never came on at all and responded one of the last days but then never replied to my reply. Sorry, is it too late to make my Activity Win Request now? My opponent didn't really do anything.

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I talked to Indra and he is fine with giving you the win despite winning the coin flip, so you will replace him. Please make sure you make activity win requests before the deadline in future!